Research Overview
Renal cell carcinoma (RCC), or kidney cancer, creates a significant impact not only in the United States, but worldwide and the incidence rate is continuing to rise. The understanding of etiologic factors causing RCC is poorly understood and incomplete, leading to lack of options from a preventative standpoint, especially in light of both an aging population and an increasing number of younger patients diagnosed with RCC.
In light of our frustratingly incomplete knowledge, our aim is to shed additional light on the risks factors that predispose to kidney cancer. To date, there are few known modifiable risk factors (listed below) and a better understanding of these and elucidation of others will be crucial to impacting the rising incidence of RCC. Well-established risk factors include cigarette smoking, obesity and hypertension. However, as these risk factors only explain roughly 50% of RCC incidence, finding the remainder of these will be the goal of our research mission.
Current known risk factors for kidney cancer include:
Tobacco smoking
Aspirin
Non steroidal anti inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)
Obesity
Hypertension
Protective Factors:
Coffee
Alcohol
Current Research Projects
- The team is working on analyzing whether the risk for kidney cancer can be affected by substances found in groundwater. We are currently identifying novel exposures that warrant further study. More investigation into those exposures could explain why kidney cancer incidence is higher in some geographical regions versus other areas
- Examine the association between adulthood BMI history and kidney cancer incidence.
- Investigate the causal association between obesity and kidney cancer survival.
- Evaluate the mixtures of air pollutants and dietary factors on urologic cancer incidence and mortality.
- Meta-analysis on the effect of air pollution and heavy metal on urologic cancer incidence.